"Justice is what love looks like in public." -Cornel West

Author: sushi

Abuse is such a taboo and triggering topic. I think it’s important to acknowledge that:

Men can be abused.

Any type of relationship can be abusive.

Abuse is NOT just physical. Abuse can be psychological, emotional, and spiritual.

I’m not saying that I’m in an abusive relationship, but I’ve been thinking about it more recently, especially about the church and toxic relationships. I have nothing substantial to say except I’ve been thinking and evaluating my own life and relationships. 🤔

Let’s be real. My diminished spirit is crying out… has been crying out for months. I am tired. I am drained. I am done. I don’t know what Jesus was talking about when He said that His yoke being easy and His burden light ’cause it ain’t. The once joyful, enthusiastic missioner that left New York seemed to have disappeared into the Hong Kong stressful bustle, into a relationship that required more giving than receiving, into friendships that tore down rather than built up, into the pressure of a society that cares more about profits than people.

Perhaps Jesus’ burden is lighter than what society tells us what we should do? Perhaps that I don’t have to listen to what culture tells me what I need in order to be enough? Perhaps it’s knowing that me being me is enough?

If it is, it doesn’t feel like it. Me being me doesn’t seem to be enough for my partner, for my friends, for my job applications. I am being slowly undone, and some things have to go. So, I choose to let go of my toxins. I choose to say no to the people and stressors that do not give me life in the past few months. Easier said than done. When you build a majority of your life on something and it’s gone, what do you have left? Little pieces that resemble your life that you know are not your life. Break down to rebuild. Is 3 months enough time to rebuild, or am I too late? Is it ever “too late”?

No.

Start now.

And I did. I started to design more, to write, to crochet, to boulder. I started to do the things that made me happy. It’s difficult to flip off cultural expectations, but it’s even more difficult to live with cultural expectations that drain you. Slowly, I will feed my spirit. Slowly, I will relight my flame.

As a child, Lunar New Year stood out the most of all the holidays. At home, it meant red packets, new clothes, fried foods, and loads of sweets. But at school, it was an ordinary day.

As a young adult, Lunar New Year meant a family dinner if we were home. Outside of our Chinese community, for the rest of the United States, it was an ordinary day.

As I serve in Hong Kong, Lunar New Year is an enormous holiday. It means multiple days off, shut down of most businesses, and a quiet over the busy metropolis. Such a contrast!

But it doesn’t feel like it’s my holiday. I don’t own up to it. I don’t get excited about it. I never felt I was Asian enough to make my own tradition but never American enough to ignore it altogether. Because I’m both and neither at the same time, a complexity that I didn’t understand growing up.

Holidays always make me nostalgic but also contemplative. It’s interesting the topics I choose to contemplate though. Apparently, for this one, I chose to think about my Asian-American identity (do you sense a pattern)?

The tension of my hyphen as an Asian-American has been the crux of my adolescence and young adulthood. Instead of trying to understand the complexity of this hyphen, I ignored it.

But it can’t be ignored.

It couldn’t be ignored in grad school as we explored the world through anti-oppressive lens. Where did my Asian identity fit into the talk about race? Where were my Asian brothers and sister when it came to advocating for our Black brothers and sisters?

It couldn’t be ignored when I moved across the world to serve with migrant workers. I am constantly reminded that I’m a Westerner. My passport holds more weight than my ethnicity. (“You’re not Chinese! You’re American.”)

It couldn’t be ignored during the 2016 presidential election. We are not exempt from racism. (“Go back to where you came from!”)

It was time to embrace the hyphen, my space in-between two worlds I called home. What does it mean to be both Asian and American in my passport land where I am praised as a “model minority” but criticized as a perpetual foreigner? What does it mean to serve with other Asians while raised with both Eastern and Western values? It means sitting with tension and being uncomfortable; it means accepting my hyphen for what it is; it means learning self-awareness and dismantling the systems of prejudice and injustice wherever I may be.

2017 came and went. I had no resolutions for last year because let’s be real – will I actually keep it? Nah. Is 2018 going to be any different? Probably not. And that’s okay too. There’s not going to be a “new year, new me” because the me that I am now is the me God created for me to be. I will continue to grow and change as my life unfolds and as I learn to fight with, serve with, and love with those in the margins.

My friends and I greeted 2016 with a sunrise at Fire Island, and I pray-sang a song that spoke to me during the winter of 2015 – for the Spirit to lead me where I am called, to have faith in my Creator. God has yet to fail me. 2016 was when I left for Hong Kong, and I rang in 2017 with my newfound migrant kasamas. This year, instead of going to the ocean, we went to the mountain to see the first light of 2018.

Lantau Peak overlooking Sunset Peak at 7am on New Years Day

With the countdown to the new year came a countdown to uncertainty, a feeling I am quite familiar with. This year brings with it uncertainty of the future. Where will I go after Hong Kong? What will I be doing? Who will I be with? How will I live? ..y’know, the usual. I can lie and say that I’m not worried because I have faith that God will provide, but honestly, I’m a mix of emotions. I’m scared but excited. I have faith but am also doubtful. We’ll see what adventures 2018 will bring and what becomes of this young adult missionary living out her ordinary adventure full of amazing days.

Where has the time gone? What have I done during those 298 days? Honestly, it doesn’t seem like much, but then again, what is “much”?

Co-writing a research? That’s cool.
Advocating for migrant workers’ living conditions? Even better!

Providing x numbers of migrant workers with trainings and services? Nice.
Engaging with and hearing their stories? Awesome!

Society would want to know about the research and numbers; my resume would boast those quantitative information, but it is the qualitative “much”-ness I’m learning to enjoy. The first half of my missionary service’s “successes” are in those moments we cannot quantify, in those moments future employers will not ask about, in those moments that I will sorely miss when I leave. It’s struggling, fighting, and laughing with migrant workers for their rights in Hong Kong and back in their home country. It’s being present in an invisible community that radiates love while fending off oppression. It will be in this “much”-ness that I will leave part of my heart.

I know I will return home to statements and questions of Hong Kong (“Your Cantonese must be so good!” “There’s so much good Hong Kong food there!”), and I know the answers I give will not satisfy (“I spoke mostly English and very little Tagalog.” “I ate a lot of Filipino dishes.”). I will not know how to sum up 20 months of service in 2 minutes. “It was good. I learned a lot.” But that does not encompass the transformation that has happened and will continue to happen for rest of my journey here.

The next half of my journey will push me to be ever so present in the communities I’m a part of as I prepare to leave and to connect with my communities back home in the US. In the meantime, I will continue to love, advocate, and stand with those in the margins as Jesus did during His time on earth.

The people united will never be defeated!

The past 6 months have been a blurry dream; reality never quite kicking in. “I’m really in Hong Kong. This is real,” I would tell myself. I never thought this would happen to me, but alas, I’m no exception. I’ve come to the conclusion that – despite how much Hong Kong felt like Chinatown “home” in NYC – I suffer from (dun dun dun) culture shock. According this lovely picture Google provided, I am in the depression/crisis stage(s) of my culture shock wave timeline.

I know that these feelings will pass, but when you’re in that funk and all you want to do is eat Mexican food and go on camping roadtrips with your friends, it really sucks. I just have to ride it out, diba (right)? I know Jesus walks with us as we grieve and comforts us during our best and worst times. I believe, but I can’t feel anything but tired.

The real damage is done by those millions who want to “survive.” The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

I’m just ONE person.

For lent, I decided to “be more eco-friendly” and not use any items wrapped/sold in plastic/Styrofoam, plastic utensils/bottles/plates, etc. It’s day 2, and THE STRUGGLE IS REAL.

But God has shown grace yesterday when I was completely unprepared with food.

LUNCH
We had to get takeout (usually coworkers would bring some yummy Filipino/Indonesian dishes) because of an 8-hour meeting but found a place that serves its meals in cardboard. I wasn’t the happiest about using a takeout container, but it’s better than plastic… for now.

DINNER
I didn’t have any vegetables to cook dinner and was already late. I was prepared to get my veggies from the wet market and be super late when LO AND BEHOLD! What should appear in front of me but a random vegetable stand in the middle of the ferry lobby!? I turned to my friend and said, “SEE?! GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!”

the covenant.

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

the benediction.

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done,
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen

-Franciscan Bendiction

the prayer.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.